Thursday 18 December 2014

A mousey tail !!


It's time for our December mid month post and today I would like to introduce Tracy, know to many of us as Tracy Mouse who is sharing some of her favourite stamps with us.

Those who know her are well aware of her love of those little four legged creatures and it comes as no surprise to see two featuring in her favourites list below, so I will hand you over to her and she will explain a little bit more about her choices.

"Hi everyone, what a difficult task I have to tell you about my favourite 5 stamps.  Well what I can tell you is that I like cute, animals and vintage.  I think that sums me up really. 

My favourites do change from time to time as I get new stamps or do something different with a stamp which then becomes a favourite, so I shall try to pick what I love right now.

My first is a new stamp, it's a Penny Black called Holiday Hugs, I adore it as it's just so cute and the ideal Christmas image for any age.  I have used it for cards and for a candle this year.


My second has to be a Sarah Kay, there are so many to choose from but the thing about Sarah Kay for me is the detail and I love colouring anything with lots of detail. This was my very first Sarah Kay stamp and I always go back to it time and again.


My third has to be my beloved House Mouse, but how do I pick favourites from them all ? But this one is just so sweet, I love it.


My fourth is I'm afraid another House Mouse, it is just so adorable, bless him.


My fifth is a Lily Of The Valley stamp, she was my first LOTV and will always be my favourite


Thank you for looking at my favourites. Tracy x

Thank you for taking the time to share you lovely work with us Tracy, call me plain nosy but I always enjoy reading what other crafters like to make and they favourite styles.

Our December Anything Goes theme is in full swing and runs through until 31st December so still plenty of time to join in for a chance to win the great prize on offer.

Sunday 7 December 2014

December challenge - Winter Wonderland


Welcome to our December challenge.

Before I tell you about this months theme, as it's the last challenge of the year it seems the appropriate time to say a few thank you's. We are blessed to have some wonderful sponsors offering great prizes as well as ever increasing numbers of both regular and new entrants, so from all of us here at Stamping Sensations a huge thank you to each and every one of you for playing your part in making the challenge a joy to be part of. 

On a personal note, I would like to take the opportunity to thank the fabulous Design Team, I am so fortunate to have an incredibly dedicated and creative team who never fail to amaze me with their unique and inspirational creations each month. 

So now for this months theme......................

********Winter Wonderland********

What you create is down to you entirely, be it cards, altered art, gift boxes, the list is endless and don't forget you can enter up to three different pieces of artwork.

We welcome back Chloe as our sponsor this month, many are familiar with her from the craft shows and Create and Craft and I think this months theme which lends itself to a bit of Winter sparkle fits in very nicely with Chloe's love of all things sparkly and glittery.


Chloes Creative Cards is a family run company based in Durham, headed up by Chloe Endean and was developed from Chloe's love of all things crafty.

"I started cardmaking as a hobby which I thoroughly enjoy and find very relaxing and rewarding. It wasn't long before I was being asked to create handmade cards by family and friends, which then snowballed to "friends of friends" and through their support and encouragement - Chloe's Creative Cards began and has continued to grow". Here is the lovely collection of goodies for our lucky winner.


Here is the lovely collection of goodies from Chloe for our lucky winner with the bonus of a bundle of ribbons from Crafty Ribbons.

Now for some inspiration from the Design Team and Gerrina who we are pleased to have as our December Guest Designer...............







Lynne
Using Stamps by Chloe "Snowflake Cluster" and "Christmas Mini Messages"



Sally
Using Chloe's Stamps Starry Wreath 


Tracy

Good luck to you all, we look forward to seeing all your Winter Wonderland creations.


Friday 5 December 2014

November winners


Good morning all you crafty Peeps, it's time to announce our November winner and Top 3 and to thank you all for your fabulous entries last month, over 350 of them, wow what a month it turned out to be. 

So as you will realise we have had an incredibly difficult task selecting our favourites and winner, but I am always confident that our method of selecting those entries is a very fair one. It's easy to use a random generator, but in implementing our voting system where every DT, each of whom has their own individual style of crating selects their personal four favourites in order first down to fourth, it means every style of crafting has an equal chance of winning.

And I am pleased to announce that our November winner is.......................

In the words of one of the DT "these are an absolutely delightful" - indeed they are

Congratulations Lorraine, please mail me with your full name and postal addy so that I can get your prize arranged. And don't forgot to collect our winners badge to display on your own blog.

And our Top 3......................

A gorgeous image, perfectly colouring and designed

Vicki
Elegant and stylish

Ellen
A very nostalgic feel

Well done to you all, pleased go collect our Top 3 badge for your own blogs.

I will be back Sunday with a new challenge and another fabulous prize.

Tuesday 18 November 2014

Some of Pinky's favourites


Welcome to our mid month inspirational post where each month one of the team share a few of their favourite stamps with us and today it's my pleasure to introduce Pinky, so I will hand you over to her and let her tell you about her choices.

"I have loads of stamps tucked away in my craft room which for some reason I rarely use which is why I love being on this team. Once I know the theme I have a good plunder and its amazing the stamps I find which I had completely forgotten.

This little stamp from Sweet November Stamps has a matching sister but I decided to go with the Stocking Boy for my Grandson for Christmas. I love cute stamps and this one I have used along with a Woodward stamp set called Cosy Christmas (Sorry forgot to take a photo of that one!)



My next selection are old and new. The angel stamp was one of my very first stamps ever purchased. It was £4.50 and when I got it home I said 'how on earth do you colour this' lol. I have used it every year since I got it as it makes a lovely religious card. It has been coloured with chameleon pens and some chalks.



The next stamp is one from Our Daily Bread. I adore their stamps. The DT ladies are so creative! This one is called Christmas Tree Collage. I coloured it with chameleon pens again. These pens are so great for getting a nice gradient to your shading. The background was stamped with a freebie stamp from a magazine!


Well that's my little take on some of my favourite stamps. Hope you like them".

Thank you Pinky, I hope everyone enjoys reading this as much as I did.

Sunday 2 November 2014

November challenge - Simply Christmas


Welcome to our November challenge and we are staying very seasonal with the theme of...............

********Christmas********

Our rules are simple, you can enter up to three times with different pieces of work, combine with other challenges, all we ask is that we see stamping as the focal element of your work.....after all we are called Stamping Sensations.

We are pleased to welcome back a regular sponsor Little Claire again this month who are offering the lucky winner a £35 voucher to spend in their store, how fabulous is that. 

Little Claire is a team of 3 consisting of Gill (Little Claire) Steve & Carol (long suffering member of staff/friend/all round good egg – but not a beautiful as Gill!). Necessity is the mother of invention’ this is the saying that sums up the creation of Little Claire Designs – we love stamps and what better way to satisfy the stamping ‘urge’ than to create our own designs exactly as we want them!

Our August challenge winner Debby is our Guest Designer this month and has created this lovely Christmas card to share with us all, I think it has a rather Nordic feel to it.



And here is the inspiration from the Design Team who never fail to please with their stunning creations, it would be lovely if you would find a moment to pop along to their individual blogs and show them some love.


Lynne
Using Little Claire's Christmas Owl Tree (plus an owl from Little Owl Family!)


Sally
Using Little Claire's 'stocking owls' and sentiment from 'the magic of Christmas' set

Using Robin Redbreast stamp


Good luck to you all, myself and the DT will be popping along to visit all your Christmas entries.




Thursday 30 October 2014

October winners


I think it's official - you all love Autumnal creations as much as we do, you really did share some wonderful pieces of artwork with us this month. And that meant our task of selecting our winners was oh so hard and it's taken some time to narrow the names down, but we got there in the end in a very close run contest and I am please to announce that the winner of the £35 store voucher from Imagination Crafts is................

Links removed to comply with GDPR

Valerie
Only one word for this one - stunning

Congratulations Valerie, please mail me with your full name and postal addy so I can arrange for you to choose your prize goodies. And don't forget to collect our winners badge.

And our Top 3 are.............................
Sarn
We all love a bit of magic

Bethie
So elegant with such neat stitching

Sarah
Classic and stylish

Well deserved recognition all of you, please go grab our Top 3 badge to display on your own blogs.

I will be back Sunday with our new challenge and another fabulous prize.

Saturday 18 October 2014

Birds and boughs



This month it is my pleasure to introduce you to Maddy, another of our talented Design Team and allow her to share her five favorite stamps with us and tell us a bit more about why they fit into her unique style of crafting. I will hand you over to Maddy.....................

I use a lot of different stamps to make up designs, often mixing and matching from different sets and using 20+ on a project, so it is exceptionally difficult to choose just five of my favourites.
  
1. Ant - My favourite stamps tend to fall into categories, and those I find myself reaching for most often are nature-themed. my absolute favourite set is the acrylic "Hedgerow" set by a European company called Artemio and it was one of the first stamp sets I ever bought.

There are meadow stamps that can be combined to make some fabulous grasslands, and some lovely insects, but my favourite stamp in the set is the tiny ant which can be used to make ant colonies snake across the page!

2. Bird on a branch - Another of my favourite nature-themed stamps is from a set by one of our fabulous sponsors, Crafty Individuals, called "CI-234".
I just love that leafy branch with the two birds on the right and use it constantly in all sorts of ways, isolating parts around the edge of a piece to make a "frame" for example.

3. Tim Holtz bird - I could pick a hundred Tim Holtz stamps and declare them all to be in my top 5, but I am limiting myself to just one, the bird from this Stampers Anonymous set "Bird Song".
It's the stamp I used in my Design Team card this month and is so detailed that it looks fabulous overpainted in watercolours or thin acrylics, or just stamped in archival over an inked background. The deep rubber gives wonderful detail to all these stamps.

4. Fish
The very first stamps I ever bought were three tiny fish by Kars. The set was the princely sum of £1, and I have used it time and again in my dimensional cards. Sadly, I don't think it's in production any more, but I have used it on my card below.

5. Snowflakes
There are so many other stamps that deserve a mention, from IndigoBlu's beautiful flower borders, to Justrite's amazing sentiments, and Sizzix innovative stamp and diecut framelits sets, but my last choice would be any intricate snowflake stamp that I could use to create resist backgrounds for my Christmas cards.

Thank you for sharing with us Maddy, please do remember to pop over to her blog and check how she created the piece of artwork at the top of this post.